The Nationals had a huge hole at first base last year, and they may have filled it this week, with the surprise Christmas Eve trade that brought Josh Bell over from Pittsburgh for two Nats pitching prospects.
Josh Bell was an All-Star in 2019, hitting .277/.367/.569, good for a 135 wRC+, 10th-best in the National League. He was worth just 2.5 fWAR/2.7 rWAR despite that line because he gave back so much value on defense — nearly two wins’ worth between his position and his atrocious defense. His bat fell to splinters in 2020, however, as he hit the ball less hard, and hit it hard less often, and hit it into the ground far more than ever before. Perhaps the most concerning thing in his stat line is the collapse of his launch angle, as Bell’s whole offensive game has been built around hitting the ball in the air. In 2020 he put the ball on the ground far more frequently and often did so by getting too far on top of the ball. He was most vulnerable on offspeed stuff, and appeared to be hunting fastballs all the time, even in pitchers’ counts. It was just a 60-game sample, but I’d feel better about Bell returning to his 2019 ceiling if I had a good explanation for why he changed his approach so completely after his best season in the majors.
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That said, the bar for Bell to clear is pretty low. The Nats received less than replacement level production from first base in 2020, rotating through a cast of characters who probably shouldn’t have been first baseman (Asdrúbal Cabrera, Howie Kendrick) or just shouldn’t have been doing it for the defending World Champions (Eric Thames, Jake Noll). Bell’s capable of more than that; even his 2017 and 2018 seasons would have been better. I’d bet on some kind of offensive resurgence, given his history and the plate discipline and power he’s shown at least from the left side of the plate, but he’s going to cost the Nats some runs with his defense until there’s a DH in the National League.
This was a strange time for the Pirates to deal Bell, coming off his worst season in the majors, with two years to free agency, but the team clearly didn’t want to pay him the $6-7 million he might get through arbitration this year, and they were willing to take less in return to avoid paying that salary. They did get two prospects in return, one with some ceiling, the other with little upside but the potential to help right now. The latter was right-hander Wil Crowe, who could be the Pirates’ fifth starter this year, working with a slightly above-average changeup and potentially average breaking stuff. However, his fastball has fringy velocity and no life, so it plays down – and MLB hitters had no trouble squaring it up, putting it in play three times as often as they whiffed on it. He’s got to learn to pitch more with his offspeed weapons, but has shown enough command and control that he could be a back-end starter if he changes his pitching plan.
The other pitcher the Pirates received was Eddy Yean, a physical right-hander who won’t turn 20 until June. He pitched in the Gulf Coast and now-defunct New York-Penn Leagues in 2019. Yean, the Nats’ No. 9 prospect coming into 2020, was sitting in the low 90s last year with feel for his secondary stuff and good control for an 18-year-old. He’s probably a long way off, but there’s the potential here for a mid-rotation starter with durability too. Given where Bell’s trade value probably was right now – a corner bat with negative defensive value, coming off a bad season, probably in line to earn $15-17 million over his two remaining years of control – this is actually a decent return for the Pirates.
Earlier in December, the Rangers traded away their ace, Lance Lynn, gaining back a young starter in Dane Dunning who still has developmental hurdles ahead of him. They traded away their nominal No. 2 starter, Mike Minor, during the season, as he was headed to free agency this winter anyway. That means they’re in rather desperate need of innings for 2021. They have just one returning starter who made at least 10 starts in 2020, Kyle Gibson, and no returning starters who made at least six starts and posted an ERA below Gibson’s 5.35. Dunning would be, solely by 2020 performance, their No. 2 starter, with a 3.97 ERA in 37 innings across seven starts — but with his trouble with left-handed batters, he’s not the reliable innings-eater they would need.
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That likely explains their modest investment in NPB veteran Kohei Arihara, a strike-throwing right-hander with a broad arsenal, even by NPB standards, but a fastball that might not play well in MLB. Arihara’s best attribute is his control, with a career walk rate of just 5.3 percent, never walking more than 40 batters in any season in Japan’s top major league. He doesn’t miss many bats, however; his strikeout rate in his best season, 2019, matched that of former MLB pitchers Brandon Dickson and Frank Herrmann, neither of whom was successful here before embarking on solid careers in Japan. Arihara has better offspeed stuff than those pitchers, including a promising splitter, but his fastball has just fringe-average velocity and little movement, and he’ll likely have to alter his approach to be an effective starter for the Rangers. They’re paying him so little that it’s an excellent gamble for Texas; if he’s even about 90 percent of league-average, they’re getting a steal. They will probably still need to add another starter for innings, given Dunning’s uncertainty and the limited health history of prospect and potential starter Kyle Cody.
(Photo of Arihara: The Yomiuri Shimbun via AP Images )
